Municipal training rolls out across Nunavut

SARA MINOGUE

The hamlet office in Grise Fiord was closed for a week in early October while the entire hamlet staff, along with seven other community members, crammed into the adult education room at Ummimaak School to brush up on writing and communications skills.
Fifteen people worked together to complete a six-day course in management communications, one of five core courses of an ambitious new training program launched by the Municipal Training Organization.

The course was the first part of the municipal government certificate program, a traveling school that hit the road on Sept. 20, aiming to train the entire management team at every municipality within three years, starting with five week-long community-based courses.

By Nov. 20, 229 people will have participated in management communications courses held in 25 communities.

Marty Kuluguktuq, assistant senior administrative officer in Grise Fiord, says the program was well received in his work place.

“I’m sure this will have an effect on our operations, if not in the immediate future, then in the long run,” Kuluguktuq said.

Greg Morash, an SAO for the past seven years, now based in Panniqtuuq, was delighted that the training program was finally coming to his community.

“It’s something we’ve been working on for about 10 years,” Morash said. “We tried to do it with the SAOs back in 1998 or 1999 and it was only curved towards the SAOS… It’s nice for us to get training but we have 52 other staff that need it too.

“We were lucky to get Chuck because he’s a very good organizer and he can leverage a lot of funds,” Morash said.

Chuck Gilhuly is the MTO’s executive director in Iqaluit. He’s been working on the project since its inception, and is proud of the results.

“It’s really big,” he said.

He said 99 people attended the first 10 classes, and that the first round of courses will reach about 200 people.

In the past, Gilhuly taught for the municipal administrators’ certificate program, and later served as a consultant for municipalities.

He started thinking about municipal training on a larger scale when he wrote his thesis for an MBA from Athabasca University. His topic, “A knowledge network for Nunavut,” discussed how to provide distance delivery training for municipal administrators in Nunavut.

Over the next two years, the hamlet office in Grise Fiord will close four more times while the SAO, finance officer, office administrator, land administrator, community economic development officer, recreation leader and works foreman complete the remaining four core courses of the program.

Municipal workers will then complete five specialty courses at regional training sessions in Iqaluit, Cambridge Bay or Rankin Inlet, leading to a certificate relating to their job.

Those who complete the certificate could then earn a diploma in public administration, human resources or management studies from Nunavut Arctic College.

Money is one reason why MTO decided to take the school to the communities – it’s cheaper to move two instructors around than 15 students. The traveling courses also benefit the communities by inviting people who don’t work for the hamlet to attend.

In addition to eight hamlet staff in Grise, seven community members also took the course, including the manager of the local hunters and trappers organization and two workers from the local day care.They’ll all earn a Record of Achievement from Nunavut Arctic College.

Morash cites another reason why the traveling school is a good idea.

“Everybody knows everybody in town so everybody works together a little bit better, I think.”

And in Grise Fiord, Kuguluqtuq said that the courses revived an interest in further education in several people.

Tom Rich, deputy minister of Nunavut’s department of Community and Government Services, said that this could have significance over the long term.

“It fits into what the Department of Education has been working on in their adult learning strategy,” Rich said.

“One of the things they have emphasized is the importance of having transferable credentials. As [students] want to go on and get more education and more learning and more certification and improve their general level of education, they don’t have to redo things.”

The program will cost $4 million to $4.5 million over two and a half years, and is produced in collaboration with the Government of Nunavut, Kakivak Association, Kivalliq Partners in Development, Kitikmeot Economic Development Commission, the MTO and Nunavut Arctic College.